Outbreak
by GrizzBe
Summary: The IMF team is tasked with infiltrating and extracting a highly deadly virus from a remote island facility.
1. Chapter 1

_How about Fallout, guys? What a freaking great movie! I've already seen it a few times in theaters and was so inspired by it that I wanted to know if I could write my own sort of Act 1/Act 2 Mission: Impossible heist! I'm afraid I might've tried to be a little too funny with Brandt's and Luther's back and forth, and there might be a little too much exposition, but I hope it worked out! Also, it's touched upon lightly in the following fic, but Ethan x Ilsa is wonderful, and you all should expect a hefty helping of it in Pt. 2. Please let me know what y'all think in the comments! Thanks for reading!_

* * *

On an unnamed island roughly 65 miles off the coast of Venezuela, a boat docks at a small pier, and a general debarks. He flashes a salute to the contractor holding the door open to the black car, his tie flapping in the wind. The general climbs in before it takes off towards the facility at the other end of the island.

The island is sparsely vegetated and entirely flat other than the large hill immediately next to the dock. The only other feature of note on the mile-long stretch of land in the middle of the Caribbean Sea is a heavily-guarded facility. Inside the car, with the partition up, the general fusses over his bushy mustache and rearranges his hat and glasses.

"I don't know if I mentioned this before, but my Spanish is a little rusty," whispered the general. "I'm fairly certain I'm mixing in quite a bit of Portuguese, as well."

"You only mentioned it about a dozen times at the briefing Benji," said Ethan. "And if you had wanted to infiltrate the facility by SCUBA, you should've said so."

Ethan went back to working the torch on the grate, the fire oxidizing into bubbles that floated up, a variety of the more curious species of fish swimming around him.

"I've only had to fend off three barracudas so far," added Ethan, the smile in his voice unmistakable.

"Barracudas you say?" said Benji. "Yeah, I think I'm okay in the car."

"Are you sure?" chimed in Luther. "I'm pretty sure we could land this prop plane on the island, and we could switch. You can land a plane, right?"

Luther sat cramped in the back of a King Air 200 flying a mile away from the island, surrounded by monitors and electronic surveillance equipment, security footage and computer terminals rolling across the various screens.

"Yes, I can land a plane," an exasperated Brandt crackled in over the comms. "They don't just give licenses out to people that can't actually fly."

"A license you've had for a whole month. Why couldn't I do this on a boat?"

"And I was the top trainee in the program, Luther! I don't see what you're upset about!"

"I'm sure Luther has full confidence in you, Brandt," chimed in Ethan, slicing through another bar on the grate. "And besides, you can't really outrun that storm in a fishing boat."

The plane buffeted against the increasing winds, the tell-tale dark clouds of a tropical storm gathering off the plane's starboard side.

"Yeah, Ethan, I meant to have a word with you about that," said Brandt.

"Don't worry, Will," said Benji. "It's not even a hurricane! Yet…"

"Yet? Benji, did you just say yet?" asked Luther.

* * *

On an island not too far north, a few old men sit in a bar, its shutters flapping in the wind and rain starting to come down. They watch an old TV as the weatherman talks about how Tropical Storm Marco is now officially a Category 1 Hurricane, with winds exceeding 75 miles per hour and shifting course quite unexpectedly towards a chain of uninhabited islands. The old men continue to drink their beers, unconcerned with the development.

* * *

"The storm is supposed to miss us by 50 miles," continued Benji. "And I don't know why anyone else is complaining. If my cover gets blown, the only person looking out for me is the rookie."

"Rookie?" asked Brandt.

"Yeah, the rookie," said Benji. "You know, the newbie, the greenhorn, the raw recruit still wet behind the ears."

"I'm not sure I'd say any of those things," said Luther.

"Oh, come on guys! What's a little good-natured ribbing between colleagues?" said Benji, his smile skewing his mustache.

Ethan stopped his torch a few bars short, "Benji, do you really want to be ribbing the person sitting behind the high-powered rifle?"

On top of the hill next to the dock, nestled between a rock and some brush, Ilsa Faust lay perfectly still in a ghillie suit, practically invisible and cradling her sniper rifle, slowly tracking the car as it drove towards the facility through her scope.

"Right," Benji said as he considered Ethan's words. "Sorry about that, Ilsa. Have I mentioned how excited I am that MI6 so generously loaned you to the IMF?"

"A few times, Benji," said Ilsa. "You might want to remember that I can take the hat off a man at three kilometers, though."

Benji gulped and unconsciously took off his hat. A mile away, Ilsa smiled as she watched him through the scope.

"Three kilometers?" asked Benji, noticing his hat next to him and putting it back on. "I thought you said two?"

"The three-kilometer shot was unofficial," said Ilsa. "Off the books. Now eyes up, Benji, you're at the first guard post."

"Just remember, Benji, the guards are South African, they probably don't hear Spanish that much," said Ethan as he sliced through the final bar, removing the grating.

"Or Portuguese-" interjected Benji.

"Or Portuguese," said Ethan, swimming through the grate towards the facility. "They're not even supposed to talk to you. General Santos is known to be a bit of a hot head, just give them a good glower, and you'll be fine."

"A glower?" asked Benji.

"You know, a glower," said Luther, who proceeded to make a low-timbre guttural noise into comms.

"You sure this isn't a glower?" asked Brandt, making a similar noise in a slightly different tone.

"Guys-"

"No, it's gotta be lower than that," said Luther, continuing to make low growls in the back of his throat.

"Guys, I think Benji can manage!" interjected Ethan. "Luther, I'm at the entrance point."

"Wouldn't want Ethan to fry down there, would we, Luther?" asked Brandt, at least somewhat pleased that he wasn't the one potentially getting barbecued for once.

"Well, it would be more 'cooked' than 'fried,'" said Benji, taking a brief moment to stare down the nearest guard in what he hoped was an intimidating manner. "There're at least 3,000 milliamperes flowing through that tunnel. If it hits Ethan, his heart will seize up, his other organs will cook, and he'll be covered in severe burns."

"Benji," said Ethan.

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

"Right," said Benji, looking up as his car came to a stop next to the entrance. "Good luck."

"Let's make sure that doesn't happen, Luther," said Ilsa, tracking a pair of guards moving to open the door for Benji. "Ethan still owes me a Manhattan."

"Oh, a Manhattan?" asked Brandt, his flight control shaking as the wind from the storm picked up. "Do tell."

"We were at dinner," started Ethan.

"Eleven Madison Park, actually," added Ilsa. "I had to call in a favor for that reservation."

Luther whistled, not looking away from his computer and doing his best to ignore the rattles from the plane, "Eleven Madison Park? Fancy."

"We were only at the first course when the Maître D' brought a pair of reading glasses and asked if we wanted to look at the rare wines list," finished Ilsa.

"You're going to have to make that one up, Ethan," said Brandt.

"Agreed," said Ethan, still gripping the handle to the electrified tunnel. "Now, Luther, could you please -"

A mile away, Luther worked furiously at his keyboard, typing in commands and rerouting systems.

"Done," said Luther, turning to a different monitor showing the feed from Benji's glasses. "We're reading you clear, Benji. You remember the layout?"

Benji almost growled as he walked past a pair of guards at a door emblazoned with warnings of 'BIOHAZARD' and gave a heavily accented, "Sí."

At the same time, Ethan had made his way past the electrical conduits and up to a maintenance station, where he was stashing his SCUBA gear and taking stock of the drybag he had brought with him, mainly the explosives, before taking out the pistol and swinging the bag over his back.

At a security station three levels up, the feed for Ethan's level shimmered as Luther executed more commands on his computer.

"We'll have control of the security feed on your floor for the next 15 minutes, Ethan," said Luther. "Anymore and they start looking into it."

Ethan approached the door that led to the rest of the facility with characteristic quiet and waited while Luther scanned the undoctored security footage from the plane, waiting for a patrolling guard to pass.

"Now," instructed Luther, watching as Ethan made his way to a corner down the hall. "Wait three seconds."

Ethan waited precisely three seconds, his pistol at the ready, as the guard down the hall turned around and began pacing the other way. The IMF agent turned the corner, his gun trained on the guard as he quickly and silently made his way to the door and inserted a keycard with wires running to a mini-tablet. In 10 seconds, the locks on the door gave off a pop and Ethan slid into the room.

What met him were four large chambers, each marked 'BIOHAZARD,' with a variety of different liquids, syringes, and tubes in them. Ethan slung the bag from his back and went to work, placing the small explosives at crucial points of the machines and activating them.

"10 minutes and counting, Benji," said Ethan.

"And only three more rooms to go, Ethan," added Luther.

Ethan collected his bag of explosives and pistol and returned to the door.

"And… You're clear," said Luther, as Ethan slipped back into the hall, making his way to the next room filled with deadly bacterial agents.

Meanwhile, Benji, as General Santos, continued on his way to the big lab at the end of the wing, where a man in a white lab coat waited for him.

"General Santos," said the scientist in English, the common language between the South African and the real General Santos. "The latest batch is very promising, we should be done at this facility in less than a week's time once we've finished follow-up tests, but those are a mere formality."

"Excellent," said Benji, going maybe a little too heavy on the accent. "Please, show me this iteration."

Within a mile of the facility, three IMF agents' eyebrows arched up silently at the performance, the fourth was too busy to notice. Benji walked in behind the scientist, listening to his spiel as the man guided him toward the wall of test tubes, picking the last one from the lineup, it's brilliant orange color shining in the light.

"We've already sent it on to our labs in Johannesburg, they'll be able to duplicate it from there in quantities large enough for field use," stated the scientist, oblivious to the slight shiver Benji had given off.

He continued talking about his benefactor's plans before finishing, "There is another test that I think you would be very interested in, General. It's at the lab in the east wing. Please, follow me, it'll only be ten minutes of your time."

He started walking for the door, missing Benji expertly lifting the test tube from its slot and sliding it into his jacket.

"Looks like you owe Benji that $20, Brandt," said Luther, watching the footage like a hawk.

"No. He got it?" asked Brandt. "I'll be damned."

"Not even a second glance from our mad scientist friend," said Luther, noting the unmistakable smirk from Benji on the security feed. "I wouldn't be gloating too much just yet, Benji. You've got seven minutes to get out of there."

The scientist led Benji along a different path, walking past a security station buzzing a little more than the IMF Agent was comfortable with. As he walked past, he looked inside giving Luther a clear look at a radar screen from his glasses, an ominous blip popping up roughly a mile from the station.

"Is that what I think it is?" asked Luther.

Meanwhile, Ilsa was clocking the different guards making their rotations around the walls of the facility, each shrugging on raincoats as the hurricane began bearing down on the island. As she was making adjustments to her scope to account for the increase in wind speed, Ilsa spotted several guards moving quickly around what looked like a large shed by the perimeter. They slid the doors open before rolling out what looked like-

"Guys, we might have trouble," said Ilsa, tracking the two drones as they were wheeled out onto the courtyard. "Predators, two of them."

"They have drones? Since when have they had drones?" asked a flummoxed Luther.

Ethan paused at the third door, "Brandt, can you handle it?"

"I think so," said Brandt, taking stock of his controls and looking past the rain driving into his windshield.

"Alright, do what you have to do," replied Ethan. "Plan stays the same for everyone else."

"You think so?" said Luther, who leaned around a monitor to get a clear line of sight to his pilot. "Even if you were a real pilot, each drone can carry two missiles, and we only brought three flairs! That math _does not_ add up!"

Luther held up corresponding fingers to punctuate the point.

"First off, I am a pilot. I've offered to show you my license _several_ times, Luther," started Brandt, who looked off his starboard wing at the encroaching hurricane. "Second, I've got a plan."


	2. Chapter 2

_Alright, guys! The conclusion of_ Outbreak! _A day late but I hope not a dollar short! I also hope I didn't skimp on the Ilsa x Ethan at the end, there! Be sure to let me know what y'all thought and if you have any ideas for a one-shot that you want to see, feel free to message me!_

* * *

"This is _not_ a plan, Brandt," shouted Luther as the plane shook violently around him.

The flare that they had just deployed had barely managed to draw the attention of the latest missile fired from the two pursuing predator drones through the heavy rains. Brandt had already dodged one missile as he flew the King Air 200 straight towards the hurricane bearing down on the island that the rest of the IMF team was on. Already, he could see the crack of lightning through the wall of the storm.

"You're just going to have to trust me," Brandt shouted back over the comms, the controls of the plane shaking his entire body.

"Listen, Ethan, this hurricane is going to blind me," said Luther, frantically trying to secure his equipment while triple checking his own harness. "You and Benji are on your own."

"Luther? Luther" whispered Ethan, only managing to catch the first half of Luther's warning before his signal was lost to the hurricane.

The IMF team lead had just finished planting the charges in the last room and was starting to work his way out and back towards his SCUBA gear. He moved silently towards a corner to check the neighboring hallway, not spotting anyone he slipped along his way.

"Ilsa, what's the situation outside?" he asked, keeping his pistol in the ready position.

"Besides the weather getting worse with every passing minute," started Ilsa, sighting the facility's grounds and fenceline. "Increased activity from the guards, but nothing too crazy. They seem to think the plane is the only real threat."

"Alright," said Ethan. "Benji, stay dark, you have five minutes to get out and start heading for extraction."

"Sí," said Benji, not exactly adhering to the directive to stay dark. The scientist was just finishing his description of the wicked ways in which his newest batch of toxin could lay waste to General Santos's enemies, curdling Benji's stomach with each image. The countdown was starting to become a factor. "That will be all doctor, I have a state dinner I must attend back on the mainland and I must leave."

"Oh, of course, General," said the South African. "Here, I'll walk you to the car."

Meanwhile, down on Ethan's floor, the multitude of security cameras lining the hallways suddenly began shaking back to life, Luther's hold over them cut by the hurricane. A security guard several floors up, who had just started to settle back down after he was certain the plane that had stayed on their radar a little too long had been taken care of, nearly spit out his coffee when he saw a man clad in black slinking along the hallway on the storage floor. Moments later the alarm button had been pressed, sending klaxons ringing throughout the facility.

Benji watched as several guards piled into an elevator, heading to exterminate his team leader. He waited for the door to close before racing over to the control panel, pulling out a knife, and popping off the control panel. After a brief second trying to parse which wire would be needed to cut to halt the elevator mid-floor, Benji yanked as many as he could and sliced through the lot of them. He was relieved to hear Afrikaans curses as the elevator jolted to a stop.

"General?" asked the scientist, standing there dumbfounded. He quickly regained his wits before running down the hall shouting, "Wagte!"

"Shit," exclaimed Benji. "Ethan! You're blown! You need to get out of there!"

Several floors below him, bullets ricocheted off the walls as Ethan sprinted down the hall.

"No shit!" exclaimed Ethan, taking a corner and giving himself a little breathing room from his pursuers. "Ilsa, I'm cut off from my primary route."

"Staircases at the Northwest corner and off the main hallway, the dock is on B-1," Ilsa said, drawing a bead on the door panel to the guard's barracks at the end of the facility's grounds. The door had begun to open after she had taken the shot, jamming after her bullet hit the panel. Ilsa smiled briefly to herself. "The sea won't be calm when you get there, Ethan."

"I can handle rough waters," said Ethan, his confidence coming through even over the trailing gunfire. "Remember Casablanca?"

"I remember paddling you back to life," replied Ilsa, the faintest hints of worry accenting her steely voice.

Ethan burst through the door of the staircase, racing upwards, "And I was fine!"

He couldn't see it, but he could imagine the roll of Ilsa's eyes as he said it and smiled, even as he heard the door below him slam open.

Upstairs, Benji was sprinting as well, his own pistol drawn. Guards were already alert to the imposter general in their midst but the confusion was still heavy, giving Benji precious seconds before they started pursuing him.

"Ilsa, I hope you're ready," shouted Benji, dropping two guards down the hall by the main door.

Outside, the guards were busy sporadically firing in Ilsa's general direction. They had responded to Ilsa's fire faster than she had thought they would, but their return fire was ineffective at best, a single shot managing to land 50 meters away, the rest kicking up dirt in the field in front of her or falling into the sea far past her.

"You're clear, Benji," said Ilsa, taking out another guard who had made the mistake of staying out of cover for too long.

A mile away and now in the thick of the hurricane, Brandt plowed ahead, lightning striking out all around the plane.

"Brandt, if we die out here-" started Luther, shaking violently with the plane.

"I know! I know! You'll kill me," shouted Brandt, wrestling the controls through the blare of the alarm from the predator's lock-on. They had just spent their last flare moments before passing through the wall of the storm, he just needed to outsmart this last one and they'd be home free.

The high pitched beeps of the lock-on turned into the long wail of a missile launch and Brandt's already vice-like grip on the controls managed to tighten further. "Hold on!"

He did the math quickly in his head, if he was off by even a second he and Luther would be debris in the storm, and yanked hard to port. He momentarily squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the explosion and opened wide after the time passed. He saw the faint trail of the missile zooming past from them.

"Come on, come on," he breathed. The trail began arcing back towards them when lightning struck down, leaving nothing but a small explosion in its place.

"Brandt, you son of a bitch!" shouted Luther, barely containing his relief before another lightning strike came down much closer and took out their right engine. "Brandt, you son of a bitch!"

Back on the island, Benji burst through the front entrance to the facility onto a scene of utter mayhem. Guards took cover with debris scattered everywhere, pockmarks on walls marking where Ilsa had deemed fit to keep guards cowering rather than let them peek and meet an untimely death and bodies where the guards had been foolish enough to challenge her anyways. All of this with the increasingly intense hurricane battering the island, what had been a slightly overcast day an hour ago was now dark grey and being drenched in sheets of rain.

As far as distractions go, the sniper on the hill proved to be one of the best that Benji could've hoped for. He had made it to the car and hot-wired it before anyone had noticed and directed their fire in his directions. After the first few landed on his side of the windshield and failed to breach, the IMF agent thanked his lucky stars that the paranoid purveyor of biological superweapons was paranoid enough to splurge on bulletproofing his vehicle.

With little hesitation, Benji gunned the vehicle through the checkpoints back toward the dock.

"Ilsa, they'll be radioing the guards at the dock to intercept you at any second," shouted Benji into his comms. "I'm clear, pullout and meet me at the extraction point!"

"Roger that," said Ilsa cooly, rising from her hideout and moving quickly towards the sea. "I'll see you there."

She began to hustle down the hill when a bullet cracked past her head. She swung towards the direction of the shot, dropping to a firing stance on one knee and took two quick shots, dropping both of her assailants. The dock had apparently responded quicker than they had expected, and had the conditions not been absolutely terrible, she might not have been so lucky. Ilsa notched it up to bad luck and continued on her way. Making it to the shore without further incident. There, she shed her ghillie suit, made sure her rifle was secure and dove into the choppy sea.

A short 50-meter swim later, she found the scooter and rebreather still moored where she had left it several days ago and took it towards the dock. Right on time, a huge splash greeted her off the pier, as the armored car plunged into the ocean. Within moments, she was by the driver's side door as it opened and General Santos emerged, accepting the second rebreather and the two were off to rendezvous with the rest of the team.

Still in the facility, Ethan felt more than heard the four explosions in quick succession as he made his way toward the dock at a sprint. He fired several shots blindly behind him, more to keep his pursuers heads down than to do any actual damage.

"Ethan can you… We're go… Down…" crackled Luther over the comms. "We're bailing… We'll meet you… sub…"

"Luther... Luther!" shouted Ethan, but his friend had already lost comms. He burst through the doors to the docks, managing to sprint even faster despite the driving rain and wind as a plane smoking from both engines belly flopped on the surface. The guards behind reaching the docks just in time to see him swan dive into the sea. He swam through the crashing waves before taking a deep breath and submerging himself, swimming straight down.

There, resting on the sea floor, was the sub waiting to take him to take him back to Venezuela. He reached one of the outside doors and went through the process of opening it, placing his face in front of the sensor and tapping in the codes, both measures meant for someone with SCUBA gear and not free-diving before the door opened up and swimming in. After recycling all of the seawater back into the ocean, Ethan took deep breaths before opening the hatch to the rest of the sub, where he was met by Luther and Brandt, both equally drenched.

"Hah! See, I told you we'd beat him," said a cheerful Brandt, who was busy changing into dry clothes.

Luther walked up to Ethan and threw a towel over him, "Not exactly what I had in mind, Will."

"Glad to see you guys make it," said Ethan, laughing through his shivering.

"Yeah, he did a pretty good job," responded Luther, at a level meant only for Ethan, before raising his voice. "Even though we never agreed on flying through a hurricane!"

"Extenuating circumstances, Luther," replied Brandt with his own laughter as he joined the two, clapping Luther on the back. "Now what's say we go pick up the rest of the team?"

"Agreed," said Ethan, and the three made their way to the controls.

Shortly, the sub shook through with the process of evacuating seawater from the airlock and Ethan went to greet the last two IMF agents. First through the hatch was Benji, smile beaming as he triumphantly brought out the vial.

"That'll be twenty dollars," shouted Benji, Brandt grumbling his assent from the cockpit of the sub.

Ethan smiled, "You did great as always, Benji."

Benji smiled and winked at his team leader before moving off to join Luther by the lockers and a dry pair of clothes that weren't the uniform of a crazed general.

"And same to you, Miss Faust," said Ethan as he reached up to help Ilsa down to the deck.

Still shivering, Ilsa managed a wry smile and a roll of her eyes at the formality of his greeting. Ethan brought her close, as much to feel her against himself as to help bring her body temperature back up.

"I'm not sure you want to get too close to me, Ethan," said Ilsa. "Even with the rain and the sea, I was on that hill for two days and no shower."

"You know the sub has a shower, right," Ethan asked, quirking his eyebrow up. "A hot shower."

Ilsa's eyebrow matched Ethan's, "Well in that case, how can I say no? Lead the way captain."

At the lockers, Luther and Benji exchanged knowing looks. Still at the controls, Brandt shouted back, "You know, technically I'm the captain, right? I'm driving the sub."

His joke fell on deaf ears, though, as the pair made their way to the large shower at the stern of the sub.

Luther, now in dry clothes, walked up behind him chuckling, "They didn't hear a word you just said, Brandt."

"And I guess we'll just have to settle for a lukewarm shower," quipped Benji.

* * *

Later, after a globe-spanning adventure, fraught with danger and a timer that was stopped at the last possible second, Ethan found himself at an expansive villa on St. Barths. The storm had long passed and the weather was beautiful, the sun beginning to sink in the horizon.

The shirtless agent held two drinks delicately in his hands as he made his way to the pool, carefully taking the steps into the water and standing by the edge as a dark figure sped towards him underwater.

Ilsa smoothly breached the water right in front of him, trapping him between her arms as she grabbed ahold of the edge of the pool. Ethan held up the drinks, his trademark smile beaming.

"Mission accomplished," said Ethan, as he offered her her glass, which she accepted. "Not exactly a Manhattan at Eleven Madison Park, but I've been told I make a mean mojito."

Ilsa took a sip and purred appreciatively, closing her eyes to savor the flavor briefly before taking Ethan in with her gaze once again. "Don't think you're getting off that easily, Mr. Hunt."

The two agents looked into each other's eyes for a second before Ethan leaned in, the warm kiss mixing with the rum drink. After a few seconds, the two parted hesitantly parted lips and Ilsa maneuvered herself into the crook of Ethan's free arm.

"I wouldn't dream of it," replied Ethan, holding her close as he always did after a mission. The two stood contentedly, watching the sun go down.

"Two Michelin stars at least," said Ilsa, earning her a roar of laughter from her partner.

"If that's the case, I know a great place in Hong Kong," said Ethan. "The Maître D' there owes me."

"Sounds good," replied Ilsa, taking another sip of her drink. He really _could_ make a mean mojito, "When can we go."

Ethan made a show of checking his watch, "Hmmmmm, tomorrow?"

The two agents and partners shared a laugh, certainly the IMF wouldn't need them before then.


End file.
